And only when she realized this did she find something.
In her search, Soraya had taken down a tapestry hanging against the wall across from her mother’s bed. As she went to replace it, she noticed that one of the stones on the wall was different than the others—it was scored, like someone had chipped at it. She went to her knees and examined it more closely. It was loose, and so Soraya removed it, still telling herself that it was simply a loose stone her mother had covered with the tapestry because it marred the beauty of her room.
She was halfway convinced of this until she found something inside the wall—something her mother had clearly wanted to hide. Whatever it is might not be hers, Soraya told herself. It might have been here for hundreds of years before us. Soraya reached into the wall and pulled out what appeared to be a bundle of rags—bloodstained rags.
Soraya unwrapped the bundle and laid it out flat on the ground. And then she let out a moan and covered her face with her hands.
It was a blanket, and yes, it was stained with blood. But beneath the blood, dust, and grime, she saw the fading pattern on the soft, thinning cotton: a pattern of stars.
She breathed in, and the smell of esfand seemed to be all around her as she heard Parvaneh’s voice saying, She brought you to the pariks wrapped in a blanket of stars and asked for this curse.
The pieces began to join together in Soraya’s mind. The pained, guilty look Tahmineh always wore when she saw her daughter. Her insistence that Soraya not see the div in the dungeon, and her panicked insistence at knowing what Parvaneh had told her. Her dismissal of all of Soraya’s questions when she was a child. The ways of divs are mysterious and unjust, she had always said, to cover up any cracks in her story.
Soraya heard her own breathing, sharp and quick, as she tried to read a different message in the pattern of stars. But they spelled out only one truth, over and over again: She did this to me. She knew all along.
Soraya still didn’t understand why her mother would bring such suffering onto her daughter, but she couldn’t deny this blanket, still stained with blood from a div’s heart.
Why me and not Sorush? She couldn’t help asking the question that had plagued her since childhood. Why was she cursed, but not her twin? Why did she have to hide in the shadows so that he could grow in the light? Why had she chosen not to take the feather for his sake, when her family had never once done anything for hers?
She heard Parvaneh saying, Are they truly your family if they’ve failed to accept you as their own? If they cast you out and treat you with disdain?
She heard Azad’s gentle voice promising, Our story isn’t over yet, Soraya.
She heard their voices so clearly, but when she tried to think of her mother, her father, her brother, or the people of Atashar—all she heard was silence.
In the stars of the bloodstained blanket, she saw her choice laid out in front of her. She could choose to cut these ties that had never done anything but strangle her so that she could be free to live the life she had always wanted. All she needed was a feather to drain this poison that her mother had given her.
With shaking hands, Soraya folded the blanket under her arm and left the room, not bothering to replace the tapestry on the wall. Her blood pounded a relentless rhythm throughout her whole body as she made her way back to her room, the path ahead of her clearer than it ever had been. She felt like she’d been struck by lightning, and now there was a fire crackling all through her. If she waited too long to take the feather, then the fire would go out, and she would become nothing but ashes before she could lift her curse. It had to be today, before she could talk herself out of it. Everyone would be in the garden, including the priests, which meant that the fire temple would be unguarded.
In her room, Soraya hid the blanket deep under her bed, then rummaged through her gardening tools for the urn she used to water the roses. She filled it with water from the pool in the golestan and went out through the garden door—and nearly tripped over Azad’s outstretched legs.
Some of the water in the urn sloshed as she recovered her balance. Azad had been sitting with his back against the garden wall, and he leaped to his feet at the sight of Soraya. “I’ve been waiting here all morning, hoping to see you,” he said. “I wanted to check on you after last night.”
“I’m fine,” she said flatly, and kept walking.
He followed, of course, and she knew it wouldn’t take him long to realize what she was carrying and where she was going. “Shouldn’t you be in the gardens for the wedding?” she said.
“I don’t care about the wedding. Soraya, what are you doing? Did something happen?”
He took hold of her arm, forcing her to stop if she didn’t want to spill more water. She looked up at him, wondering how much to tell him. He might find her plan abhorrent—treasonous, even— but he had seen the worst of her last night, and he had stayed by her side. And in any case, he would know soon enough.
She looked around them to make sure no one was listening. The air was pungent with meat and herbs, flowers, and spices, but this part of the grounds was empty today—everyone was either inside the palace or in the gardens. “I’m going to the fire temple,” she said. “I’m going to free myself.”
He held her gaze, and then he shook his head slowly and said, “Whenever I think I finally know you, you surprise me. But Soraya, are you sure this is what you want? Your family—”
“My family did this to me,” she snapped, clutching the handles of the urn so hard her knuckles hurt. “My mother had me cursed and lied to me about it for years. So tell me, what do I owe my family? My loyalty? My affection? When have they ever given me either of those? They sacrificed my life and my freedom—I’m only taking back what they stole from me.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Azad looked scared of her. His hand dropped from her arm and he took a step back, his mouth falling open in shock. But then he spoke, and she understood that she wasn’t the cause of his growing horror. “Your mother did this to you?” he said. “Did she tell you why?”
“No,” Soraya replied. “I haven’t spoken to her. I don’t want to speak to her. All she’s ever done is lie to me.”
“I understand,” Azad said, stepping closer to her again. “Trust me, I know that anger. I’ve felt it before. But are you sure you want to do this? Are you ready for the consequences?”
“Yes,” she said at once, but truthfully, she hadn’t thought much of the consequences. She wanted to strike now, without worrying about what came after. The yatu had been sentenced to death for attempting to put out the fire. Soraya knew she would receive no less severe a punishment—unless she escaped, as he had. “Yes,” she said again. “I want this. And then I want to leave Golvahar and never come back.” She shifted the urn’s weight to rest in the crook of one arm, and then shyly, uncertainly, she put her gloved hand on Azad’s chest, fingers curling over his heart. “Would you come with me?” she asked him in a whisper.
She didn’t know what she was asking—for him to come to the temple with her, or to run away with her, or to stay by her side for as long as she wanted him. All of them, she supposed. The idea of freeing herself from her curse only to lose Azad seemed cosmically unjust when he was the one person she wanted to touch most of all.